Volcano Revisited

Despite the 96 mile drive, we decided to go back to Volcano, as there were a few things that we wanted to do and see that we had missed on Monday. We tried to get away earlier today. I had bought a few supermarket items the night before, so we were able to eat breakfast in our roo. We had to rough it a little as there were very few kitchen items available. We had retained a couple of McDonalds plates and forks, bt we had to take turns. What I really missed was the lack of a jug to make myself some coffee. The first time I recall a motel anywhere not having that facility.

Nothing much to report on the trip to Volcano. The coast was rather nice, but it was the same boring scenery again. Saw the same couple selling their jewelry at the scenic point near South Point.

We arrived much earlier and first went to the tree molds. When the lava flows through an area, the trees resist it for a time, but after a while they eventually burn up, sometimes after the lava has solidified. Sean wasn't very impressed with the fact that some people had used a tree mould as a garbage bin!

From the moulds we drove around to Volcano House to get the latest info. We saw that a trail down into Halemaumau was leaving at 1:30 so we thought that might be a good idea. At about that time we heard that there was going to be a special video shown of the most recent activity of the volcano which would go for about 30 minutes. The footage was from the previous Sunday! 3 days ago! And the man who shot the film gave us a brief talk and answered questions.

He talked about the way the lava changed its patterns, about the crust which builds up and often collapses, and also the Pele's hair, which forms when lava stretches. He seemed very excited about it and the excitement rubbed off on us.

The area of activity is in the East Right Zone somewhere near Pu'u O'o. After buying some books we took the Chain of Craters Road to see if we could see any of the activity at Mauna Ulu. However, the weather hadn't improved any today, and when we got there it was raining.

We decided to eat the lunch we had packed to see if the weather might clear, but it didn't, if anything it got worse. I donned my raincoat and off we went. The road had been closed by a lava flow and there was no indication of which way we were to hike. There were just piles of a'a all over the place. We climbed around on it, and I was sure at one point that I could see smoke, but Pete thought it was just cloud or rain, and that it was too close anyway. The drizzle made things uncomfortable, so we headed back to the car. This was the point where the nine mile hike down to Pu'u O'o began.

But now it was too late to go on the Halemaumau walk, so we headed back to Volcano House. My head wasn't feeling too good: like someone was squeezing it from both sides, so I bought a coffee while the others went back to the visitor centre. Amazingly enough after the coffee my head felt better, so I decided that I must be a confirmed caffeine addict.

We made our way around to the Jaggar Museum attached to the Hawaii Volcanoes Observatory. Sean was also complaining that he didn't feel well and that he was bored, bored, bored, which made mum and dad angry, angry, angry! There was a lot to see in the museum - different types of lava, seismometers, tilt meters, stories about Hawaiian legends etc. After a good look around we tought we would head off. There wasn't much point in trying to walk anywhere as it was too wet, and we had seen most of the spectacular scenery. Besides, we didn't want a late night as we had to get up at 4:45 for our trip to the mainlandin the morning.

So after a quick snack on chips, we headed off for Kailua at about 4pm. On the way we decided it would be best to have dinner first then buy ourselves one last souvenir of Hawaii before packing and doing some washing.

For dinner we roamed around looking for something appropriate to our budget. We decided on the banana buffet. The children complained that they didn't want to stay here, probably because hamburgers weren't part of the buffet! They both found things to fill up their plates with though, and didn't finish them off.

After dinner we wandered around looking for a t-shirt. The boys were easy to choose for. Pete & I were a bit longer. I chose two sundresses, Pete a "brudda shark", Joel a "hang loose", and Sean a gecko.

It was after 9 when we got back to the room and were horrified because we remembered the laundromat closed at 10. However, no problems.Read more